For decades, Labor Day didn’t just mean the end of summer. It meant settling in for the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. Starting in 1966, the comedian hosted a massive 21.5-hour broadcast that became a pop culture ritual. Over its run, it raised an estimated $2 billion for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Stars from John Lennon to the Jackson 5 to Aretha Franklin all made appearances, and in 1976, Frank Sinatra orchestrated a legendary on-stage reunion between Lewis and his former partner Dean Martin, twenty years after their bitter split.

The show wasn’t without criticism. Some called out the charity’s use of pity in its appeals, and Lewis’s humor sometimes crossed lines that wouldn’t be acceptable today. But the bigger collapse came from behind the scenes. In 2011, the MDA proposed cutting the telethon down to a pre-recorded six-hour special. Lewis resisted the change, and the organization ousted him just weeks before the broadcast. His 2010 performance, where he tearfully sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” would become his final moment on the show he had hosted for 44 years. The MDA ended the telethon tradition completely in 2014, and Lewis passed away in 2017 at age 91.

Labor Day has never really had a TV anchor event since. Charity fundraising has moved online, into live streams, and onto social media. But the scale of what Lewis built was monumental for its time. Do you think a modern celebrity could pull off a 21-hour charity broadcast today, or is that era gone for good? Let us know in the comments.